Green Bay Packers: Releasing Mike Daniels ups pressure on young players

The Green Bay Packers are set to release defensive tackle Mike Daniels, which leaves a hole that must be filled by a litany of young players.

Since the Green Bay Packers selected Mike Daniels in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft out of Iowa, the defensive tackle has been a stalwart up front. In 102 career games played (72 starts), Daniel has produced 29.0 sacks, 47 tackles for loss, 236 total tackles and 68 quarterback hits. Now he’ll be producing for another team, though.

In a shocking move on Wednesday, the Packers moved to release Daniels, per NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. The move comes after Daniels dealt with injuries for much of 2018, ultimately limiting him to just 10 games played. Furthermore, the move saves the Packers $8.3 million in cap space.

Daniels’ release comes one day after the Packers also inked 2016 fourth-round pick Dean Lowry to a three-year contract extension, one that will pay him $20.325 million over that time. Lowry, however, is just one of several additions that Green Bay has made up front over the past few seasons.

In the past four draft classes, the Packers have selected Kenny Clark (2016 first round), Lowry, Montravius Adams (2017 third round), Rashan Gary (2019 first round) and Kingsley Keke (2019 fifth round). There’s no question that these recent additions led to the feeling that Daniels was expendable in Green Bay.

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There’s an argument to be made that’s not actually the case, of course. Over his time in Green Bay, Daniels emerged as the consistent and productive force for the Packers defensive line. He proved to be a menace as an interior pass rusher, grading out as one of the top interior pass-rushers consistently according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required).

Subsequently, replacing Daniels isn’t going to be an easy task. They are going to need the players that they have brought in via the draft in recent years to step up and earn their keep, which ultimately puts a great deal of pressure on these guys to rise to the occasion.

Clark has already done that in his own right playing with Daniels. Last season, the UCLA product emerged as one of the better interior pass rushers in the league, even better than Daniels by PFF’s metrics, as he accrued 6.0 sacks, eight tackles for loss and nine quarterback hits. There is no question that Clark appears ready to take up his spot, but there are questions about the rest of the youngsters.

Lowry has shown flashes of being a disruptive player on the defensive line, but has not been a consistent force. Meanwhile, Adams has yet to fully break through and the likes of Gary and Keke have not yet played a snap in the NFL. Thus, they should all be considered unproven commodities at this point in their careers.

Even still, the talent in this group is obvious as all but Keke were taken in the fourth round or higher and some draft analysts had him graded out as a better player than when he went off the board. Thus, the tools are there for this group to succeed.

Having tools, however, is only half the battle. With Daniels now gone and Green Bay having revamped their defense this offseason, the pressure will be ramped up for these young players to slide into roles and not just do their job, but perform their duties at a high level so that the loss of Daniels isn’t detrimental to their plight of taking a step forward defensively.